ng--"

"No, but you're thinking, and you want to quit it." Whereupon Fred
went off to his tent and indulged in a much needed siesta.

Kate was angry as well as hurt. The injustice of Fred's condemnation
stirred her to action. She got hurriedly into her khaki skirt and
tramping shoes, slung a canteen over her shoulder, tied her green veil
over her hat and under her chin, put on her amber sun-glasses, and
took her stout walking stick.

She was careful not to wake Fred or the professor, though that would
have been more difficult than she imagined. She did not want them to
know where she was going. If they missed her and were worried it would
serve them both right; for now she remembered that the professor had
also been very unsympathetic. Neither of them had seemed to realize
what a terrible night she had spent there alone, with that terrible
fire raging through the forest and with Marion gone, without saying
one word to Kate about where she was going or when she expected to
return.

She meant to climb Mount Hough in spite of the altitude, and find out
for herself what sort of a fellow that lookout man was. Fred and
Douglas might make light of the matter if they wished, but she was in
a sense responsible for Marion Rose, and she considered it her duty to
think of the girl's welfare.

There was a good deal of determination in Kate's character, once you
roused her out of herself. She climbed Mount Hough, but she did not
find out what sort of a fellow the lookout man was, for Jack heard her
puffing up the pack trail and retired, with the precipitateness of a
hunted fox, to his niche between the boulders. She did not stay long.
As soon as she had rested a little and made sure that the station door
was locked, and had peered in and seen that everything was in perfect
order, she decided that the lookout man was probably off fighting fire
with the rest of the forest rangers. Convinced of that, she
straightway jumped to the conclusion that he had not been there at all
since the fire started, and Marion must have stayed up there alone,
and she had simply been trying to worry Kate over nothing.

Well, at any rate, she couldn't play that trick the second time. Kate
felt well repaid for the climb even if she did not get a glimpse of
the lookout man. Let Marion pretend, if she wanted to. Let her rave
about the lookout man's mouth and eyes and temper; Kate was armed
against all future baitings. She could go back now and be mistre